August 2005 Archives

The Orlando Sentinel editorial board is absolutely correct to argue:

The entire nation will suffer Katrina's wrath -- most likely at the gas pump and in home-heating-oil prices. The Gulf Coast of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is dotted with offshore oil rigs and refineries, most of which are closed indefinitely pending damage assessments and repairs. Already, analysts anticipate price jumps. A plan to release oil from the nation's strategic reserve should be based on the actual availability of supplies and refinery capacity -- not price increases at the pump. The storm also laid bare the terrifying vulnerability of Gulf Coast oil and gas operations -- underscoring the need for Congress to adopt a rational energy policy that weans this nation from its overdependency on fossil fuels.

We all should have known that the Bush Administration's appalling overuse of the National Guard to fight its Iraqi War would have major consequences when our homefront was facing the results of a natural disaster.

Of course, it is politically easier in the short-term to overuse the National Guard -- it beats, politically, at least -- increasing the size of our military or instituting a draft.

But right now? There are National Guard soldiers in Iraq who should be at home dealing with Katrina's aftermath.

Our president has, quite belatedly, decided to get back to Washington.

It's about time. With the Mayor of New Orleans complaining that the flooding of his city can be attributed, at least in part, to a lack of relief effort coordination, getting back to work seems like the right thing to do.

Alas, our president cannot return to the White House to deal with disasters like Katrina's impending landfall on the south or for last winter's tsunami.

No, those early flights are reserved for matters of grave national concern such as signing emergency legislation to get the federal government involved in the Terri Schaivo tragedy.

Priorities, you know.

Americablog has been doing a great job recapping what the president has found more important to do since Katrina's danger became clear.

The difference, according to the media, is all about skin color.

(Hat tip: KD)

What a difference a day makes. As Taegan Goddard points out on his Political Wire with the Quotes of the Day:

"What is important is that Iraqis are now addressing these issues through debate and discussion -- not at the barrel of a gun." -- President Bush on Saturday.

"The negotiators and drafters of this document braved the intimidation of terrorists and they mourn the cowardly assassination of friends and colleagues involved in the process of drafting the constitution." -- President Bush on Sunday.

What awaits the City of New Orleans? Chris C. Mooney, a former resident of the city, reminds us of an article he wrote in May describing what could happen if the city took a direct hit from massive hurricane. Mooney wrote:

A direct hit from a powerful hurricane on New Orleans could furnish perhaps the largest natural catastrophe ever experienced on U.S. soil. Some estimates suggest that well over 25,000 non-evacuees could die. Many more would be stranded, and successful evacuees would have nowhere to return to. Damages could run as high as $100 billion. In the wake of such a tragedy, some may even question the wisdom of trying to rebuild the city at all. And to hear hurricane experts like Louisiana State University's Ivor van Heerden tell it, it's only a matter of time before the "big one" hits.

Good luck to everyone connected to the area about to be hit.

Oliver Willis is right: this short movie is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the internets.

Why would a Republican Senator who, according to his official bio, holds a subcommittee chairmanship that is "a key foreign policy perch" decide to lie to the American people about the draft Iraqi Constitution's provision that "no law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam"?

(Hat tip: Think Progress.)

Update: Gee, when President Clintion was in office, this Senator cared a great deal about how bad it was to lie to the American people. Isn't it funny how this Senator's position (like that of many of his colleagues) on lying changed on January 20, 2001?

Given how she was highlighted during the 2005 State of the Union message, shouldn't the fact that Safia Taleb al-Suhail now is very worried about the Iraqi Constitution be a big story? As Reuters' Andrew Hammond reports:

Although in practice, many Iraqis end up having recourse to religious authorities or informal tribal law, the idea of a united civil code is central to the modern state, Souhail said.

"This will lead to creating religious courts. But we should be giving priority to the law," she said.

"When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened -- we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment."

Souhail said the United States, a crucial backstage player keen for a deal that meets U.S.-backed deadlines, had let the Shi'ite Islamists and Kurds in government do as they wish.

"We have received news that we were not backed by our friends including the Americans. They left the Islamists to come to an agreement with the Kurds," she said.

Update: As Atrios suggests, you should check out Billmon's post from earlier this week about Suhail, with pictures the remind us just how important she was to the 2005 State of the Union message.

James Wolcott has crafted an incredibly useful post that defines chickenhawks and explains why they are dangerous.

Associated Press National Writer Robert Tanner takes a look at the debt bubble that has been created by the Bush Administration's obscene mismanagement of our federal budget.

A chorus of economists, government officials and elected leaders both conservative and liberal is warning that America's nonstop borrowing has put the nation on the road to a major fiscal disaster — one that could unleash plummeting home values, rocketing interest rates, lost jobs, stagnating wages and threats to government services ranging from health care to law enforcement.

Sigh.

But, really, the problem lies not just in Washington. Yes, it sure would be nice to have leadership in our federal government that exhibited even a minimal amount of fiscal responsibility. But a large part of a problem lies with us -- the American people. As Tanner explains:

Leaders are elected by the people they serve, of course, and the American people seem to want the best of both worlds -- tax cuts and government services -- while they hope the dollars sort themselves out. They worry about the nation's problems, but not enough to agree on a course of action to fix them.

The AP/Ipsos poll of 1,000 adults taken July 5-7 found that a sweeping majority -- 70 percent -- worried about the size of the federal deficit either "some" or "a lot."

But only 35 percent were willing to cut government spending and experience a drop in services to balance the budget. Even fewer -- 18 percent -- were willing to raise taxes to keep current services. Just 1 percent wanted to both raise taxes and cut spending. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The nation's political leaders could hardly be said to have a mandate calling for fiscal responsibility. (emphasis added)

Until we demand fiscal responsibility, we should not expect it from the Republicans now running our government.

So much for straight talk. Now it's pander time for Senator John McCain. As Political Wire's Taegan Goddard points out, McCain has now endorsed the teaching of intelligent design in our classrooms because it is important to include "all points of view."

Right. Sure. Not what is scientifically sound. Just include everything -- well, everything radical right wingers would want. Would a true straight talker really join the GOP's war against science?

Gary Hart deserves great credit for writing this op-ed appearing in today's Washington Post. Every Democrat, and especially those supposedly running the party inside the Beltway, need to think about Hart's message.

History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."

To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly.

What will history say about an opposition party that refuses to oppose? Are they worried that the radical right is going to call them names? Heck, Rush Limbaugh and his clones are going to call us unpatriotic anyway.

Instead of hiding in the shadows, it is time for the Democratic Party to act like an opposition party. To oppose -- really -- this Administration's ruinous policies. As Hart explains:

At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.

But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.

It is time for Democrats to oppose. The last election cycles of appeasing the radical right have not worked in our favor. It is time to try something new -- opposition -- that also happens to be the right thing to do.

Tom Toles is on fire with this all-too-true cartoon.

Catching up with the History News Network's POTUS blog, Rick Shenkman points us to this interesting article and the attached graphic that show that the Iraq War is going to cost over one trillion dollars when the accounting is done.

The article's author, Linda Bilmes, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant Secretary of Commerce, explains:

The cost goes well beyond the more than $250 billion already spent on military operations and reconstruction. Basic running costs of the current conflicts are $6 billion a month - a figure that reflects the Pentagon's unprecedented reliance on expensive private contractors. Other factors keeping costs high include inducements for recruits and for military personnel serving second and third deployments, extra pay for reservists and members of the National Guard, as well as more than $2 billion a year in additional foreign aid to Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and others to reward their cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill for repairing and replacing military hardware is $20 billion a year, according to figures from the Congressional Budget Office.

But the biggest long-term costs are disability and health payments for returning troops, which will be incurred even if hostilities were to stop tomorrow. The United States currently pays more than $2 billion in disability claims per year for 159,000 veterans of the 1991 gulf war, even though that conflict lasted only five weeks, with 148 dead and 467 wounded. Even assuming that the 525,000 American troops who have so far served in Iraq and Afghanistan will require treatment only on the same scale as their predecessors from the gulf war, these payments are likely to run at $7 billion a year for the next 45 years.

And for all this money, and the nearly 1,900 dead U.S. soldiers, we get to help create an Islamic theocracy.

Nice work.

My wife yesterday pointed out to me this excellent Daily Kos diary focusing on an unpleasant October surprise that will hit many middle and lower income credit card users hard: minimum payments are going to increase signficantly -- often doubling in size.

This is a big deal. You would think that this would be bigger news. But, of course, the credit card companies would rather keep this quiet until the new bankruptcy law goes into effect in October.

Check out cskendrick's diary entry and all the links provided. Don't be surprised by this change. Be ready to protect yourself from the universal default and 30 or 40 percent interest rates that can result.

This could be a bleak holiday season.

This Tom Toles cartoon is right on the money.

Rush Limbaugh should be ashamed about what he said about Cindy Sheehan. His listeners should be ashamed if they fall for his attempt to rewrite broadcast history by denying he made those horrible remarks. As Keith Olbermann writes:

On his daily radio soap opera, on August 15, Limbaugh said “Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents, there's nothing about it that's real…” The complete transcript of the 860 words that surround those quotes can be found at the bottom of this entry.

Yet, apparently there was something so unpopular, so subversive, and so crazy about those remarks that he has found it necessary to deny he said them - even when there are recordings and transcripts of them - and to brand those who’ve claimed he said them as crackpots and distorters. More over, that amazing temple to himself, his website, has been scrubbed clean of all evidence of these particular remarks, and to ‘prove’ his claim that he never made the remarks in question on August 15, he has misdirected visitors to that site to transcripts and recordings of remarks he made on August 12.

Limbaugh is terrified. And he has reason to be.

If you disagree with his handling of the Iraq War, you are, in effect, a Stalinist.

Such respect for opposing views on the part of our governing officials really makes me feel grand about the state of our Republic.

According to MSNBC's Chief Washington Correspondent Norah O'Donnell, everyone in Crawford, Texas, protesting the Iraq war is an "anti-war extremist."

Ah. Our so-called liberal media, once again hard at work framing the issue in a way that could only make noted liberal Karl Rove proud.

How come I never hear about pro-war extremists?

(Hat tip: Media Matters for America.)

As Media Matters thankfully reveals, Pat Robertson recently called for the assassination of the democratically elected president of another country.

What a Christian idea. The radical right strikes again.

That list just grew, as Kevin Drum points out after taking a peek at The Corner on National Review Online.

In his post, Andy McCarthy explains why he is getting off of the Iraq War bus. While I strongly disagree with McCarthy's claim that democracy and Islam may be incompatible, I believe this paragraph is right on the mark:

But even if I suspended disbelief for a moment and agreed that the democracy project is a worthy casus belli, I am as certain as I am that I am breathing that the American people would not put their brave young men and women in harm’s way for the purpose of establishing an Islamic government. Anyplace. (emphasis original)

The United States of America may have a hand in creating another radical Islamic Republic. Just how is that in our national interest?

What's President George W. Bush's reaction to Cindy Sheehan? Why, how about a few speeches to try to link the Iraq War to the September 11 terrorist attacks. As the Washington Post's Mike Allen writes:

Bush aides said that, beginning on Monday, he will try to bolster support for his Iraq policy by giving three speeches in military settings over the next two weeks. They said he will argue that just as "the greatest generation" saw World War II through to victory, the nation must be patient while today's military combats terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Citing the approaching fourth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush will contend that the ideology of terrorism and the willingness to kill innocents link the insurgency in Iraq to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and to last month's bombings in London.

But, as long as we are going to discuss September 11, I have a question for our dear president:

When are you going to get Osama bin Laden?

I realize it is really rude to bring up something actually relevant to the September 11 attacks upon our nation. But, it has been 1434 days since the President of the United States promised to get bin Laden "dead or alive."

Via Majikthise, we read a stunning concurring opinion in a Montana Supreme Court decision giving police the right to rummage through garbage without a warrant or court approval.

Justice James C. Nelson concurred with the decision, but at least he welcomed us to Orwell's 1984 while doing it. So at least we have that going for us:

And, I also know that my most unwelcome and paternalistic relative, Uncle Sam, is with me from womb to tomb. Fueled by the paranoia of "ists" and "isms," Sam has the capability of spying on everything and everybody--and no doubt is. But, as Sam says: "It's for my own good."

In short, I know that my personal information is recorded in databases, servers, hard drives and file cabinets all over the world. I know that these portals to the most intimate details of my life are restricted only by the degree of sophistication and goodwill or malevolence of the person, institution, corporation or government that wants access to my data.

I also know that much of my life can be reconstructed from the contents of my garbage can.

I don't like living in Orwell's 1984; but I do. And, absent the next extinction event or civil libertarians taking charge of the government (the former being more likely than the latter), the best we can do is try to keep Sam and the sub-Sams on a short leash.

As our Opinion states, search and seizure jurisprudence is centered around privacy expectations and reasonableness considerations. That is true even under the extended protections afforded by Montana's Constitution, Article II, Sections 10. and 11. We have ruled within those parameters. And, as is often the case, we have had to draw a fine line in a gray area. Justice Cotter and those who have signed the Opinion worked hard at defining that line; and I am satisfied we've drawn it correctly on the facts of this case and under the conventional law of abandonment.

That said, if this Opinion is used to justify a sweep of the trash cans of a neighborhood or community; or if a trash dive for Sudafed boxes and matchbooks results in DNA or fingerprints being added to a forensic database or results in personal or business records, credit card receipts, personal correspondence or other property being archived for some future use unrelated to the case at hand, then, absent a search warrant, I may well reconsider my legal position and approach to these sorts of cases--even if I have to think outside the garbage can to get there.

Yes, our media has such a liberal slant. After all, one would expect that a liberal-slanted media, in a story describing the creation of pro-Bush rally to counter the work Cindy Sheehan began near Crawford, Texas, would open with:

CRAWFORD, Texas - A patriotic camp with a "God Bless Our President!" banner sprung up downtown Saturday, countering the anti-war demonstration started by a fallen soldier's mother two weeks ago near President Bush's ranch. (emphasis added)

So, the Associated Press's Angela K. Brown goes out of her way to describe the new pro-Bush camp is patriotic.

Then, um, is the anti-Bush camp unpatriotic, Ms. Brown? After all, as Tom Smith explains:

Now, I am sorry for this man's loss. On a factual level, I don't agree with him. On a personal level, I think he's a fathead. I have no idea how questioning why our kids have died for a war we were lied into, or putting up a cross to commemorate a dead soldier, is disrespectful. But, honestly, Mr. Qualls has every right to hold his own pro-Bush protest. I don't agree with him, but that doesn't matter; so far, this is still America. And that, actually, is not what I wanted to post about.

I'm posting about the complicity of the Corporate Media in the Administration's propaganda campaign.

In the very first sentence of the story, with the first three words, Cindy Sheehan and those who protest with her are painted as unpatriotic.

There's really no way to avoid that implication. If those supporting the President are in "a patriotic camp", then Sheehan's Camp Casey is unpatriotic. 1+1=2, y'know?

Thank you, Associated Press, for deciding in this subtle but important way that only those who support the president can be patriots.

Nice job framing this story so strongly against Cindy Sheeham. Against people like me who think it is patriotic to protest an Administration that is making decisions with which we strongly disagree. Against people who think that starting an unnecessary war based on lies and faulty intelligence -- and without a plan to win the war's aftermath -- is wrong.

The so-called liberal media strikes again.

Bob Costas deserves credit for deciding not to guest host an edition of Larry King Live because it was to focus on the Natalee Holloway story.

Holloway's disappearance is indeed a tragedy for her family. The focus upon the story by our news media is a tragedy for our nation.

Great to see that at least one media figure was able to say no.

(Hat tip: Harry Shearer at The Huffington Post.)

David Sirota makes an excellent point about why Northwest Airline mechanics are right to fight for their economic rights:

The New York Times reports that executives at Northwest Airlines are trying to squeeze the pay of its employees, claiming the company is in severe financial straits. That might be believable, until you read down a few paragraphs to a key section, which those same executives have no explanation for.

With workers now striking the Times notes:

"In the last several months, the airline had spent more than $100 million to hire and train 1,500 substitutes, many of them licensed mechanics who had worked at other airlines. The airline had also hired and trained 1,100 substitute flight attendants, in case their union stages a sympathy strike."

Here's the simple question (that the media, of course, hasn't asked): If the company is supposedly in such severe financial straits that worker pay cuts are required, how do these executives have $100 million of company money to throw around for anti-union activities?

"Execs aren't sharing the pain. When Chrysler wrung mid-contract cutbacks from the UAW in 1981, the company was strapped. Chrysler canceled its dividend, top execs took a 10% pay cut, and then-Chairman Lee A. Iacocca worked for a dollar that year. Today, both GM and Ford still pay a dividend, and GM CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr. got a $2.5 million bonus for 2004 -- on top of his $2.2 million in salary. Both companies also have huge cash hoards -- $20 billion at GM and $23 billion at Ford."

If the company is having problems -- and as Sirota admits, there is no doubt that some of these companies face real difficulties -- then everyone needs to share in the pain. That includes senior executives and shareholders.

Decemberist Mark Schmitt links to an interesting Newsweek story about the latest Jack Abramoff scandal, and notes that:

Now this is beginning to seem like the uber-scandal, the thing that brings many of the grotesque threads of the last five years together. You've got Tyco International, just after the downfall of Dennis Kozlowski and when the Bermuda-based conglomerate was trying to lobby its way back into the appearance of corporate good citizenship, without going so far as to pay taxes. You've got another right-wing hack, Flanigan, who if confirmed as Deputy AG would have some oversight over the Plame investigation, and who was paid $800,000 by the Federalist Society to write a biography of Chief Justice Warren Burger that he never produced. (Leaving the millions, um, dozens of would-be readers of such a book to grasp desperately for intellectual sustenance by rereading one of the several biographies of the even duller Justice Blackmun.) You've got Abramoff, of course, and then you have a real bread-and-butter issue, one that doesn't have to do with tribes or obscure Pacific vassals: "corporate inversions," or the practice of reconstituting a corporation as a subsidiary of an offshore entity for tax purposes. These are what John Kerry called "Benedict Arnold" companies.

This is a story worth watching closely.

Meanwhile, while Larry Mattlage is reminding us about some of our basic American ideals, Rush Limbaugh is spitting upon them -- again.

Rush thinks it would be great if George W. Bush could expel from the country U.S. citizens who disagree with him. As the invaluable Media Matters for America documents, Rush said:

Wouldn't it be great if anybody who speaks out against this country, to kick them out of the country? Anybody that threatens this country, kick 'em out. We'd get rid of Michael Moore, we'd get rid of half the Democratic Party if we would just import that law. That would be fabulous. The Supreme Court ought to look into this. Absolutely brilliant idea out there.

But, hey. Why let facts get in the way of one's rather horrific argument that only radical conservatives, or those who know their place is to shut up and not to criticize President George W. Bush, can be allowed to stay in a nation that supposedly is the home of the free?

Cindy Sheehan gets some good news:

For starters, Camp Casey, Sheehan's increasingly crowded roadside encampment named after her son, will move soon to a large property even closer to the president's ranch, she said.

"A kind gentleman from down the road offered us the use of his property," Sheehan told reporters Tuesday night. She identified the man as Fred Mattlage, whom she described as a distant cousin of Larry Mattlage, a local resident who fired a shotgun across the road from the encampment on Sunday afternoon.

Sheehan said the property, near a Secret Service checkpoint close to Bush's ranch, would have plenty of space for the parked cars that have jammed the roadside, irritating local residents.

Fred Mattlage, an Army veteran, said that he sympathizes with the demonstrators and that the group will be safer on his corner 1-acre lot.

"I just think people should have a right to protest without being harassed," Mattlage said. "And I'm against the war. I don't think it's a war we need to be in."

Why, it's like we live in the United States of America or something. What that's just so...right on target.

Thank you, Fred Mattlage, for reminding us (especially the radical conservatives) of this basic concept. People should have the right to protest. And they do not hate America because they take advantage of that right.

Wow. Just when you thought there was now way for radical war supporters to sink any lower, they now think it is good to run over a memorial to our fallen soldiers. From the Associated Press:

Cindy Sheehan — the mother who's camped out near Crawford, Texas, demanding to speak with President Bush about her GI son who died in Iraq — is continuing her vigil but the makeshift memorial erected at her campsite has taken a hit.

The campsite has close to a thousand white crosses, each representing GIs who, like Sheehan's son Casey, were killed in Iraq.

While Sheehan has gotten a lot of support in her vigil, and has been joined by dozens of sympathizers, she's also sparked some opposition.

Monday night, a pickup truck tore through the rows of white crosses.

The crosses stretched along the road at the Crawford, Texas, camp, bore the names of fallen U.S. soldiers. No one was hurt.

But to run over a memorial to fallen soldiers -- crosses -- to get back at them?

Really, is nothing sacred to these radical right-wingers? Probably not. The anti-military right continues to grow and show itself.

(Hat tip: Americablog.)

Ted Leonsis, the owner of my favorite (if likely bad this year) NHL team, the Washington Capitals, will be participating in an on-line chat at the Washington Post at 9 a.m. pacific time.

The Caps are likely to be among the worst teams in the NHL this year. But, I find myself agreeing with the long-term strategy outlined by Leonsis in this recent letter to Caps fans.

As far as free agency is concerned, I will admit that we made offers to several players who would have helped our team in the short term. We were competitive as it related to salary, but we lost out because of the term of the contract. We are prepared to sign the right players, but we have to factor in their age, salary and length of the contract. We didn’t want to be saddled with longer term contracts to older players. We have to allow our young players an opportunity to play and progress. For some that opportunity will be this year. For others, it will be next year or the year after.

I know this is counter to what many of you think is the right thing to do. The majority of my emails are screaming for us to add older players without regard for the eventual ramifications of a long-term deal. Many of you who have come to know me during the past six years realize that I really want you to love the Capitals and that I want you to like me as an owner. Admittedly, in the past I did some things as a result of listening to our fans, and out of that desire to be popular, it really would be easy right now to sign some of those big-name free agents to get you off my back. But I’m now more experienced, and I believe the new system creates a real opportunity for our team to build the right way. I’m willing to take short-term pain for the long-term gain. I’m willing – and comfortable – to make decisions that you deem unpopular because I have the overall best interests of this franchise at heart.

NFL and NBA teams have learned that the wrong long-term contract can hurt a franchise for a decade. It makes sense, at least in my head, for a team to take some time, see how the market and the new collective bargaining agreement work, and give what Hockey's Future ranks as league's top collection of minor league prospects time to grow.

It is hard, though, to see teams like the (loathed) Pittsburgh Penguins completely rebuild their roster in a manner of weeks. Taking a team that finished last in the NHL in the league's last season to what appears to be a playoff, or even Stanley Cup, contender.

So, we'll see what questions are asked and how Leonsis answers them. As much as one can question some of the moves he has made since buying the team, I still give him great credit for taking the time to explain what he is thinking.

Other notes: Speaking of Leonsis' letter to the fans, Jes Golbez gives Leonsis a thumbs up for the letter, while Off Wing Opinion wonders if it is time for a new General Manager to implement the strategy.

Ah, yes. Good to see we have a handle on airline security. Think Progress points us to a story that would be comical if it were not about such a serious subject. The Associated Press' Leslie Miller reports:

Infants have been stopped from boarding planes at airports throughout the U.S. because their names are the same as or similar to those of possible terrorists on the government's "no-fly list."

It sounds like a joke, but it's not funny to parents who miss flights while scrambling to have babies' passports and other documents faxed.

Ingrid Sanden's 1-year-old daughter was stopped in Phoenix before boarding a flight home to Washington at Thanksgiving.

"I completely understand the war on terrorism, and I completely understand people wanting to be safe when they fly," Sanden said. "But focusing the target a little bit is probably a better use of resources."

But you never know what a 1-year-old could do in President George W. Bush's United States of America.

Digby offers this needed smackdown to Michael Ledeen, who tries to argue that liberals in this country are colluding with terrorists and supporting the creation of an Islamic state in Iraq:

Memo to those on the right who say the Left supports Islamic fundamentalists: we're the Godless Heathens, remember? We're against the religious zealots running governments across the board. Of course, that includes your "base" here in the US too so you'll have to pardon us for our consistency and ask yourselves why we find you incoherent on this matter.

We always understood that while deposing Saddam was easy, the risk of civil war or an Islamic theocracy were very high. We thought it might be worthwhile to wait for just a fucking minute to see how this little terrorism problem played out before jumping into the middle of the hornets nest and swinging wildly. So, please don't blame us. We don't like totalitarians. We don't like theocrats. And we understood that when you go mucking around in the middle east at the direction of con-men and ideologues, you are likely to fuck things up.

America isn't magic. The military does not have magical powers. We knew this. Michael Ledeen and his fanciful cohorts apparently didn't. Now they are blaming everybody --- and I mean everybody --- but themselves for the failure they have wrought.

One of the fronts in the radical conservative war on science is that the idea of "Intelligent Design" should be taught in our public schools.

Actually, I could agree if ID were not pushed in science classes. But, of course, that is not what the anti-science radicals want. ID is the new attack on the science of evolution.

If you want to hear a great hour of conversation about this important issue, check out this recent episode of Christopher Lydon's Open Source program.

Listening to Brown University Professor of Biology Kenneth Miller discuss this issue with Lydon is simply a treat. (My wife loved his class -- I can understand why.) Miller, the author of "Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution" brings a rare perspective to this issue.

Thanks to podcasting, I was able to hear it. You can also download the mp3 and hear for yourself.

I am not sure how this story helps to back up President George W. Bush's repeated claim that all he does is listen to his military commanders when it comes to what they want in the field.

Okay, it doesn't. The story just highlights the Bush Administration's hypocrisy. Philip Sherwell writes in the Telegraph:

The top American commander in Iraq has been privately rebuked by the Bush administration for openly discussing plans to reduce troop levels there next year, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

President George W Bush personally intervened last week to play down as "speculation" all talk of troop pull-outs because he fears that even discussing options for an "exit strategy" implies weakening resolve.

Gen George Casey, the US ground commander in Iraq, was given his dressing-down after he briefed that troop levels - now 138,000 - could be reduced by 30,000 in the early months of next year as Iraqi security forces take on a greater role.

As Sherwell explains, there are a variety of reasons for people to be thinking about how we can draw down the number of our military stationed in Iraq:

Politically, the administration will be under pressure to signal a significant cut in the US presence by autumn next year to help Republicans fighting mid-term elections in November 2006. Military commanders, however, also need to wind down numbers, the imperative that prompted Gen Casey's comments, according to Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank.

"It's number-driven," Mr Goure said. "The military can only maintain these levels in Iraq if it has absolutely no choice. Otherwise, the current pattern of rotations and other commitments mean that they will have to lower numbers."

Christy Harvey at Think Progress compares statements made by President George W. Bush about Iraq and Iran. As she explains:

As they say, it’s deja vu, all over again.

Via Americablog, we see a story about how one of President George W. Bush's neighbors decided to provide Cindy Sheehan and her supporters with some extra special Texas hospitality:

President Bush might have made his peace with the antiwar encampment outside his Texas ranch, but his next-door neighbor has taken up arms.

The incident occurred Sunday morning as activists gathered for a prayer service in the tent village set up by Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq and who is demanding a meeting with Bush to discuss the war.

On the other side of Prairie Chapel Road, Larry Mattlage hopped into his pickup, barreled across his pasture and pulled up to a fence within a few hundred feet of the protesters. He climbed out of the cab, retrieved a shotgun from the back and fired at least one blast into the air.

Mattlage insisted he was shooting at birds. But he said the activists had worn out their welcome, and he wanted them to go away.

"I done made my case. It's over," he said as he shooed away a reporter from the gated entrance to his ranch.

Shooting at birds? Right. Sure. Uh-huh. Not sure what "case" is made by shooting at birds. But, hey. Perhaps it is some sort of Texas thing.

A little later in the story, we come across another odd statement:

Other neighbors expressed admiration for Mattlage's one-man stand. "I wish I had the nerve to do something like that," said Army Sgt. Vernon "Dusty" Harrison, who spent a year in Iraq and owns an adjacent property. "I salute his bravery."

Especially since, um, Mattlage was just shooting at birds. Wink, wink.

Kevin Drum made an important point the other day about a great change hitting our world and illustrated it with the graphic to the right. He writes:

After all, with only a couple of exceptions, even the most pessimistic peak oil folks don't think world oil production is going to peak for several more years, which means there's not much reason for short term price spikes. So what's the explanation?

It's possible that it's due to nothing more than normal short term market fluctuations. However, the chart on the right suggests the answer is more fundamental: demand is now exceeding supply.

That may not be true any longer.

People interested in the subject of our energy security should check out this interview with Matthew R. Simmons, the author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy". If you are so inclined, you can download an mp3 or listen to the audio of the interview by clicking here.

Simmons has gone to the trouble of trying to figure out exactly how much each oil field in the world is producing. His findings are a bit scary. As he tells interviewer Jim Puplava:

So I decided it would be interesting and educational to see if you could actually put together a list of the top 20 oil fields by name. And I thought somebody must have done this before, and the more I dug the more I realized that no one ever had. So I basically decided – arbitrarily – 100,000 barrels per day [bpd] production was my cutoff of what constituted a giant oil field and all Fall of 2000, I believe this was, I basically took data from various areas and kept trying to hone in on the total list, and I decided once I got it done, I would circulate it widely to the 4 or 5 or 6 hundred people who really ought to know the areas a lot better, and that would flush out the real data. What I came up with was finding that there are about 120 oil fields in the world that still produced over 100,000 bpd, and that they collectively were 49% of the world’s oil supply. What I also found is that the top 14 fields that still produce over 500,000 bpd each, were 20% of the world’s oil supply, and on average they were 53 years old. The next thing I found was that in the Middle East you had basically, somewhere between 3-5 oil fields in each of the major Middle East oil producers that made up about 90% of their supply – and until I did that I had just assumed the Middle East had hundreds of oil fields – and all these oil fields were old. And then what I found was – because we made it clear that anyone who wanted a copy could get one, but the caveat was that if you have any better information, let me know – I probably shipped over a thousand of these copies out to people and I had about 5 responses of “here’s a field you missed, here’s a field you misspelled or here’s a field you said it was producing X, and I believe it’s probably producing Y.” Only about 5 responses, out of over a thousand people who got this. What I got from hundreds of people was “this is amazing, I’ve never thought about this before.” And these aren’t just sort of random people, these are people that are all passionate energy analysts.

Sure. Because every time I get into a discussion now about the future of oil I always get asked, “well, where will oil prices be?” And my response is, “I don’t have any idea where they’re going to be, other than the fact I think on a secular move, we are still at a very, very cheap level of oil prices.” And that immediately gets a response, “Cheap?! Oil’s at $60 a barrel!” And one of the things I’ve observed is that people don’t really understand what a barrel is. They can kind of conceive what a barrel might look like. But when you put it in terms people can understand, I say “what $60 per barrel is, is 18 cents a pint.”

And then I get a response, “How did you do that?!”

“Well, you divide 60 by 42, to get a gallon of oil, and you divide a gallon by 8 to get a pint of oil, and that just happens to be 18 cents a pint.”

And then they say, “ Oh, that’s really cheap, isn’t it?”

And obviously it’s cheap. I don’t know what’s the next cheapest liquid we actually sell in any bulk is, that has any value. I suspect there are places around the United States where municipal water costs more than 18 cents a pint. And yet for some reason, we created a society that was built on a belief that oil prices in a normal range were some place in the $15-20 level. It turns out $15/barrel, which is the average price of oil – in 2004 dollars – it sold for, for the last 140 years, is less than 4 cents a pint. So we’ve basically used up the vast majority of the world’s high flow rate, high quality sweet oil at prices that were effectively so cheap, you basically couldn’t sustain an industry. And now we’re left with lots of oil. But it’s heavy, gunky, dirty, sour, contaminated with various things oil, it doesn’t come out of the ground very fast, is very energy intensive to get out of the ground and we’re going to pay a fortune for it.

Our energy consumption is an economic security issue. It is also -- given where most of the world's oil is located -- a major national security issue.

So should we not take it a little more seriously than we have so far?

The Huffington Post's Steve Cobble makes an excellent point explaining how people who think they are insulting President George W. Bush can actually end up helping his cause.

The cartoonists have been having a field day with Cindy's challenge and George W's double super secret vacation, which is good.

But I have one bone to pick--not just with the cartoonists, but with my brother and sister progressives. Please quit calling him a cowboy.

George W. is not a cowboy. He's never been a cowboy. He's an oil man, and a prep school/Ivy League/Skull & Bones cheerleader, born and schooled (sort of) in New England.

This may seem trivial, but it's not, because most Americans like cowboys. That's why the Crawford ranch was built in the first place--because Karl Rove knew that a ranch setting was more popular and populist than an oil derrick.

Isn't it nice to see our so-called liberal media organizations sponsoring pro-Bush rallies that are designed, at least in part, to wrongly connect the Iraq war with the September 11 terrorist attacks?

Way to go, Washington Post. John at Americablog almost works up enough outrage about this situation.

The Mock Turtle over at Julie Saltman's blog catches one of the most prominent right-wing bloggers making a prediction that he will likely regret having made.

After commenting on today's excellent Frank Rich column, The Mock Turtle takes a look at right-wing world and writes:

Assrocket over at Powerline has this to say about Rich's column:

Notwithstanding endless hectoring from Rich and his fellows on the fringe, there is only one man whose views about Iraq will really matter for the next three and a half years. His name is George W. Bush, and he isn't going to cut and run.

But the dangerous thing about making statements like this is that they can easily be proved wrong. I'm sure Powerline won't be drawing our attention to this particular prediction in the run-up to the 2006 election when Bush does precisely "cut and run." No need to even argue about this one, John: just wait and we'll see who's right.

Count me as among the confused.

Yesterday, I read President Bush's latest weekly radio address. When he was not trying to tie his Iraq war with the September 11 attacks (what a lying POTUS we have), he spoke about how great our goals in Iraq really are.

The terrorists will fail. Because we are fighting a murderous ideology with a clear strategy, we're staying on the offensive in Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror, fighting terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home. When terrorists spend their days and nights struggling to avoid death or capture, they're less capable of arming and training and plotting new attacks on America.

We're also spreading the hope of freedom across the broader Middle East, because free societies are peaceful societies. By offering a hopeful alternative to the terrorists' ideology of hatred and fear, we are laying the foundations of peace for our children and grandchildren.

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

We can all be thankful if a little bit of reality-based policymaking is sneaking into the White House. But I would suggest that our enterprising Washington press corps may want to spend some time seeing if they can figure out just what this White House's plans are in Iraq.

Did we, after all, really lose over 1,800 American lives to create a new Islamic Republic in the Middle East? Or a situation that shall not result in "a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges"?

What, exactly, Mr. President, is the noble cause here?

After fixing server troubles, etc., welcome back to the blog. CraigCheslog.com should be a little easier to remember (or tell someone about) than the old cheslog.com/craig/parrhesia deal.